In June 2006, originally posted to Wikiquote:Village pump.

Village pump archive 7

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Help with welcomes

I've been adding welcome messages to every new registered user for the past 3 months, not only to be friendly, but also to provide them with useful links to help them get started at Wikiquote. I want to thank the other users who have occasionally assisted in this important task. However, I'm finding that I'm still doing 95%+ of the welcoming of as many as 60 new users a day.

I would like to ask everyone in the community who does even occasional editing to consider helping in this effort. It's easy to do with 3 quick steps:

Click on this new users link to get a list of the 50 most recently created users.
Pick one that has a red [Talk] link and click on it.
Add the following text to their talk page and save it:
{{subst:welcome}} ~ ~~~~

This will add a complete, signed welcome message to their page, giving them a nice start to their Wikiquote experience. I thank in advance everyone who can help on this, however infrequently. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 00:08, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'll try to some of this in the down time I have at work. —LrdChaos 02:52, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

With community approval, we can set a bot to do this. It need not have an obvious bot name, which might make the welcome seem insincere; something like User:Happy would be fine, as long as we all know what it is there to do. I'd be happy to have it coded and stick it on my account on the toolserver; I can set it to check newusers every hour and welcome any user with a red talk link. Certainly, a live welcome squad would be preferable, but if having a welcomebot is something we're interested in, it can certainly be done. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 11:50, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, for that matter, we could have it sign a name other than it's own; we could form Wikiquote:Welcoming Committee and sign it [[WQ:WC|The Wikiquote Welcoming Committee]]. (Or "Wikiquote Welcome Wagon" or "Wikiquote Newbie Stalkers", whatever! ;-D) Essjay (Talk • Connect) 11:53, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The only problem with that is even if we have the bot sign an established user's (or a committee's) name, a new user may be confused as to why the person who just welcomed them is not replying to the message they just left on the their talk page right after they got the welcome. It's probably better to have actual users welcoming others in case the new user quickly responds with a question. (Of course, if you know a way around that, I'm all ears.)

In the meantime, I'm welcoming users when I can (I'm going to be a bit busy until mid-June.) -- Robert 21:46, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's an easy one; we redirect the bot's talk page to another page (the talk page of WQ:WC, or even to a place like here or the Reference Desk), and then make sure we all have that page on our watchlists. :)

I went ahead and drafted up a Welecoming Committee page; I figured, even if we don't decide to go with the bot idea (and it was just a helpful suggestion), we could still do to have a centralized location for coordinating those of us willing to help out and welcome new users. The page is at WQ:WC. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 02:06, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

yo, I gave my self a welcome note. hope you dont mind..:)) --Diza 15:50, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Update: I'm told on en.wp that there are several bots available to do this, and that getting the code to one would be fairly easy. If the community is interested, we can have one ready to test within a few days. The difficult part is settling on a good welcome message. :) Essjay (Talk • Connect) 03:14, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you set it up, I'll take a pass at the wording and supporting links. In addition to the usual links, I want to make sure there's an obvious link to get help from active editors. (There is an implicit assumption that anyone who would take the trouble to post a welcome would respond to a posting on their talk page. Do we monitor the bot talk page, direct new users to the Welcoming Committee, just emphasize village pump, etc.?) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 03:24, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Whichever is most likely to get noticed. If we have Wikiquotians who use IRC, I can have an IRC bot output real-time notices all posts to the bot's talk page to a channel, where we can watch for them and respond. I'll look into getting the bot code & setting it up in the next few days. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 08:45, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The conbination of IRC bot & real editor might be fine. I love this idea. It would give a warmer feeling to people than bot posting message. We have already #wikiquote, and perhaps it wouldn't be bad we have an additional channel specific to recentchanges pursuing, if someone is regularly on it (Sorry, now I'm available yet). --Aphaia 06:25, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think we're trying to solve a problem without wondering whether there is a problem. I am still posting 95% of the welcome messages. (Most days I am the only one doing so.) In the 4-5 months I've been doing this, I've received perhaps 15 thank-you postings and only 3 or 4 questions. And yet we feel it necessary to notify a theoretical community of #wikiquote watchers in real-time when these questions come through? Do we even have regular monitoring of #wikiquote, let alone a new channel? (Last time I checked #wikiquote, I found I could go most of a day without a single other person online.) Let's consider the scope of the "problem" before we invest effort in complicated solutions that will only generate a false sense that the "problem" is being handled. Better yet, let's turn this problem-solving excitement toward the real problems we have here. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 07:01, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, forget irc for now. Without any new implement, we'll find a newcomer by eyes on user account creation log a/o recentchanges and welcome them.

So in those limitations what is the most convenient for welcomers?

In my impression, on some Wikipedias, e.g. EN WP, they welcome only the editors who have significant quantity of edits - variing from 5 to 15, it depends
- Merit: the workload will be reduced.
- Demerit: Majority of newcomers will be not welcomed and have no clue to be involved more deeply. Statistics say most of editors have very few edits, 1-3.
On some projects, e.g. JA WN, they welcome all new registers found on "account creation log"
- Merit: All newcomers receive the welcoming message.
- Demerit: Sounds a bit automatic. "Hello PAGENAME" type arrangement would tincs friendly atmosphere.
- Demerit: It is uncertain if workload will be reduced.
Find newcomers on recentchanges, and then welcome them. (our practice)
- Merit: some people could receive a message in their very editing, and if wants, contact to the editor who welcome him or her.
- Merit: needs no further gimmick.
- Demerit: Workload is overwhelmed from some eyes.
- Demerit: Some newcomers would be missed and get no guidance.

A relevant proposal might be creation of Wikiquote:Welcoming committee. I am interested in joining. Any participants? Or, any possible ways? Let me know your ideas. I think, we all agree on that welcoming newcomers are one of our good traditions and we need to keep it, the current way however faces challanges and thus needs improvement. --Aphaia 09:16, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, Essjay already created a Wikiquote:Welcoming Committee back in May, and he, LrdChaos, and I have already signed up on it. (I just created a redirect from your link above. I'm too tired and busy right now to hassle over the capitalization issue.) I don't know about anybody else, but I've been using method #2 — monitoring the account creation log — from the start of my efforts in March. My motive, besides the friendly greeting and name of someone who is willing to respond to newbie questions, is also to ensure that everyone gets links to pages that new users really ought to read before they start editing. I therefore prefer this method, which catches everyone. (Some editors may not edit or even log back in for months, but they'll have that greeting waiting for them when they do.) With the existence now of a welcoming committee, I can see some possibilities about bot-posting welcome messages and directing questions to the WQ:WC page and/or its users. Meanwhile, I'll keep watching the log and posting welcomes in my mindless fashion. ☺ ~ Jeff Q (talk) 11:11, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Help..

I just created/edited the Chris Farley page..but I'm not exactly sure I did it right!! Would anyone mind taking a look at it for me (it's the first time I've ever done this!) Thanks!!

Don't worry too much; any problems can be fixed. I see that you used Wikiquote:Templates/People to start your article, which is good. There are four basic problems to the current article:

You have used the "Sourced" heading for quotes whose sources are not listed. These kinds of quotes should go into the "Attributed" (or "Unsourced") section.
You left much of the boilerplate (sample) text in the article. You should delete anything you don't use (like "Specific novel/play/work (date published or created)" or "Criticism").
You didn't edit the category tag ([[Category:OCCUPATION|SURNAME, GIVEN_NAME]]) to use a proper category (in this case, [[Category:Actors|Farley, Chris]] and [[Category:Comedians|Farley, Chris]] can both be used).
You included dialog without using the dialog format, which unfortunately isn't shown in the current People template. You can find it at Wikiquote:Templates/Films and Wikiquote:Templates/TV shows.

There are other minor things (like formatting and adding external links like IMDb), but one need not do everything all at once. Of course, it's hard to absorb all the practices before editing your first article. One good shortcut to learn formatting is to edit existing articles that have the formatting you are trying to use, and look how they do it. (You can cancel these edits without saving, or just close the browser window, to avoid making changes.) Similar articles can also show you useful information like existing categories. For example, if you aren't sure what category to put Chris Farley in, you can check for similar performers like Dennis Miller for hints. If you have any more questions, feel free to post them to my talk page. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:22, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Jack Handey

Jimbo Wales has made an edit to the Jack Handey page, with a comment on the talk page that such extensive quoting was "deeply inappropriate." He then deleted all the quotes. Someone else has reinstated all the quotes and made a reply on the talk page. If fair use is to be observed, who will make the choices and redo the page? I wouldn't consider myself qualified, knowing little about Handey; but I thought I should bring it to everyone else's attention, considering all that's involved. InvisibleSun 20:58, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's up to the community to policy itself, but we must follow Wikimedia Foundation requirements. Jimbo's action strongly suggests he feels we aren't doing a proper job, at least with this article, and I'm afraid he's got a point. I've just deleted most of the quotes from this very likely copyvio and left some notes on the talk page about why we need to be careful, and how to cite source information as Jimbo mentioned. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:53, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

##**Hi, I just made some changes to the Jack Handey page, I didn't remove anything just added to it. - unknown**##

4 July 2006 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.27.67.105 (talk • contribs) 02:07, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I have restructured the additions just added, as they (A) did not follow any Wikiquote style guidelines, and (B) do not come from a wiki-reliable source, but from a fan website. I did this instead of just deleting the additions in the hopes that it will encourage readers to think of more reliable sources for these quotes. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 14:30, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Amharic wikiquote

Need to start and amharic wikiquot isocode am —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.202.202.143 (talk • contribs) 02:46, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

A Japanese Phrase

When I was young I heard a phrase in Japanese that sounded something like "san pac ku". The meaning of this phrase had something to do with seeing the whites of the eyes under the pupils and it was described as a bad thing. Do you know anything about this? Thank you.

It works a word or its component rather than phrase, so you could try our sister project, Wiktionary. Your seeking one is probably "sanpaku"(gan) (or spelled out "sampakugan"). The meaning is exactly what you mentioned - eyes under whose pupils have the whites of the eyes, and this is not liked as a sign of maricious character generally. --Aphaia 06:31, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki software upgrade?

Did we get a new version of MediaWiki pushed on us? It seems that the custom TOCs for some pages (MythBusters and Family Guy are the ones that come to mind) are broken now, where they worked just a few days ago. —LrdChaos 14:30, 29 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not aware of a software update, but that doesn't mean anything, as these things are frequently slipstreamed without announcement. (We appear to be using MediaWiki 1.7alpha (r14374) now.) I gather that the issue is the link failures in the TOC. I see that both the problem pages are for TV shows that are still ongoing, and that the likely problem comes from the bracketed episode numbers in the headings. The usual practice is not to attempt to create custom TOCs for shows that are ongoing, as they require significant wiki skill to add episodes, which is unreasonable to expect of novice editors. Once a show has finished its run, all episode headings can be added in order and the ep numbers removed, as Wikiquote doesn't need such encyclopedic data, only the titles for proper sourcing of the quotes. The bracket problem then becomes moot. It's not a perfect system, but it's what we had developed and have been using, and we've had no consensus or initiative from existing frequent editors to alter this — so far. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 04:06, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Quotes from The Simpsons

Greetings. I'm a member of WikiProject The Simpsons and we want to do something with all the quotes that has been incorrectly placed at Wikipedia. I'm just not sure how to do it, because there are quite simply too many quotes for your current structure. With 377 episodes I would guess that putting them all in The Simpsons, would make the page larger than 1MB. I don't know what your policy is for large pages. It also seems that you don't allow separate pages for fictional characters such as Homer Simpson. Here's what I would do. Make a page for each season of The Simpsons and for some of the more important characters. Is this in violation of policy? --Maitch 15:48, 29 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikiquote is a bit loose about some policies, as we don't have many editors willing to work on them here. I'll summarize the current relevant practices with TV show articles.

Each TV show has its own single article, with season headings and episode subheadings.
Page length is not treated as a technical problem, although there are some heated discussions about copyright issues.
To avoid outrageously long tables of contents, custom TOCs can be created to pack episode links into a single page or so. (Recommended only for completed series.)
Character articles are frowned upon. (I believe there's been some discussion about articles with a substantial number of "solo" quotes — quotes that don't rely on dialog with others to provide their pithiness — but I don't recall any progress on that.) Character articles tend to get hunted down by editors who wish to keep TV-show quotes focused on the show. (For instance, we deleted "Faith (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)", but we haven't yet taken action on Anya Jenkins, other than to merge-tag it.)

As a result, we have a number of unaddressed problems with some of our largest articles. Given the phenomenal (and ongoing) run of the The Simpsons, I'd say that this show is the one that is going to force us to address these problems. Here's my recommendation for now:

Go ahead with the season division. It's practical, it has precedent on Wikipedia, and the main article's list of seasons would be comparable to a disambiguation page (like Batman) or an index page (like Star Trek).
See how the season division goes before considering the character articles. Consider that duplicating information between show and character articles will spread thin the efforts of Simpsons editors, not to mention confusing new contributors who might be unsure about where one should add quotes. This is a touchy point here, as well as on Wikipedia. The latter seems to be bowing to the inevitability of fans' desire to create such pages, although folks like myself harp on sourcing statements to make them proper encyclopedic articles. I do the same here for quotes. If people decide to start pushing character articles, the only way to ameliorate the resistance may be to create solid Wikiquote articles, with proper introductions and properly sourced quotes. But I still recommend making only one major change at a time.
Read Wikiquote:Copyrights and the discussions on its talk page. There is an ongoing concern about the number of quotes that a compendium may have from a TV show before it is likely to draw the legal wrath of the copyright holder. It's important to note that French Wikiquote was shutdown over the issue of including too many quotes from copyrighted sources.

I hope this helps. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 21:21, 29 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the reply. It's a bit hard to try to follow policy, when there is none. I can't see why it shouldn't be allowed to have a page for Homer Simpson, where there is one for Darth Vader. I think the fairest solution would be to only have pages for the main characters (Homer, Marge, Bart and Lisa). It's more controversial to have a page for Ralph Wiggum, which already has been discussed at the wikiproject. Anyway I think that we should start copying the episode quotes and later find out what the consensus is. The copyright issue is important, but if the quotes are in copyright violation on Wikiquote then they are also in copyright violation on Wikipedia. I will do my best to find out if the quotes are copied from another website, but I do believe that most of them have been added by fans. How many lines would you think would be appropriate for a 21-22 minute episode in order for it in order for it to become fair use? --Maitch 18:05, 30 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're right in that sometimes it's hard to follow policy that doesn't exist or doesn't seem to be enforced at all. A large part of the problem is that we here at Wikiquote just don't have nearly the same number of serious editors working to bring things up to match with the policies, and lots of pages slip through the cracks until they're finally noticed months or years later. (For example, I recently tagged the Darth Vader page for merging into Star Wars (which, I think, should be split up by film, but it's a lot of work to clean it all up in the process) which probably hadn't been done because no one familiar with the policies spent much time with the page before, not because it would implicitly or explicitly accepted.)

Regarding your thought that you "think that we should start copying the episode quotes and later find out what the consensus is," I don't think that's going to work out as well as you think here. As I mentioned, there are a lot fewer serious editors here that there are at Wikipedia (you only need to see our Votes for deletion page for evidence, where nearly all the votes are some the same five or six people, almost all of whom are sysops). There really isn't the same community here to get a consensus from, and so most decisions end up being made by the admins anyway. It also means that either these few people are going to make a huge investment in time and work to clean things up to have proper formatting and all, or that the pages are just going to sit around "as-is", with the occasional editor dropping by to drop a few quotes in.

Are any members of "Wikiproject The Simpsons" willing to come over and help out in making sure that things end up in the right spot and in the right format? Unless there are a few (or more than a few) people willing and able to do that, I don't think that any of those pages would ever get cleaned up, sorted, or whatever. We already have too few people to handle what we have already, without the sudden addition of another meg of quotes across 377 episodes, with almost none of them in our format virtually ensures that those pages would sit around, tagged for cleanup, from when they were created until the end of time. —LrdChaos 16:04, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, it seems that a couple of editors from the project has started dumping quotes here without knowing the policies. I'm going to leave them a message so we can coordinate our efforts into something that is also usable on Wikiquote. My intentions are to follow policy, so we don't just dump a massive amount of work for other editors. That is why I'm asking these questions, because it should be done properly. So far I know this:

It is okay and practical to do episode quotes by the season.
Character pages are not allowed for any character.

Could anybody tell me if there is an upper limit to how many lines there can be for a 22 minute show in order for it to be fair use? --Maitch 17:51, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

First, I apologize for my rant—I think I came off as annoyed/aggravated, which I am, but not at you or at this. Please don't take it personally, for it wasn't meant to be. As for what constitutes "fair use", there isn't really any hard and fast rule about it. Personally, I think that by the time you've got four or five lines from a single quote, you're starting to push it (in two senses: fair use, and keeping quotes as short as possible). I don't know of any similar idea that would apply for how many groups of quotes are okay for each episode, but purely from an ease-of-use perspective, once an episode's section is longer than one screenful, it becomes harder to keep track of where you are in the page (especially when scrolling, and especially when some of the surrounding episodes are short).

One thing I've noticed (in general) is that some of the longest quotes include too much; they either have a much extra text trying to explain context, actions, and tone, or they include lots of extraneous text that isn't really necessary for the joke/comedy. (I don't know how true this is of Simpsons quote at Wikipedia, however.) In the former case, once you take out all that context stuff, the quote itself makes no sense, and in that case, it's probably best not to include it, because this is a text-only medium, and while people who have seen the episode will get it (because they have the episode in their head), someone just reading it may not be able to get the right mental picture based on the explanation. In the latter, it's often possible to take a ten-line quote and turn it into a two-liner without really affecting how people will "get" it (though there are exceptions, like when a joke depends on repetition).

So, the short version: fair use is hard to define, but there are a couple of ways that quotes can be trimmed down to make them more likely to be fair use, while also making things easier to read. —LrdChaos 18:15, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here's what I think on the matter. While the season idea is great, and desperatly needed on wikiquote because the Simpsons' one page is just far too long...I think certain characters should have their own quote page. Not every character...thats silly. But characters like Homer, and Ralph have enormous collections of famous sayings...many of which have some place in pop-culture. There should be an exception with these guys not only because it makes it easier for users to access their quote list...and have a focal point to put their favorite quote if they don't see it...but in the long run it makes it far easier on us.

Copy and pasted from my personal discussion page on wikipedia.

I'm aware of this. But the thing is...is that I see no other way. If we could only ask wikiquote's superiors about this maybe we can set something up..because the whole thing's a big, big mess. If Ralph's quotes don't have a place to go to...then there's only one other place anon's will inevitably put them on...his article on here. When I first redid Ralph's profile, his list of quotes was so unbelievbly long...it took up nearly half of the entire page's length. Its not just Ralph...many characters suffer from this. Plus there's the fact that the main quote page on the Simpsons on wikiquote is so cluttered, full, and long that people are having problems trying to fit anything on there. Just merely deleting information isn't going to solve anything....this is a problem that needs to be addressed.

I think in the case of this show in particular, and a few other shows with a massive quote list...there has to be exceptions. Right now the main way wikiquote is dealing with this is to just dump all of these quotes onto the Simpsons main page...the page does not need additional quotes. Its almost impossible to browse as it is.

I really don't see whats the big deal about having individual character quote pages either. As I said, not every character needs it, but like for instance...I had to deal with Ralph's unbelievably long quote section on his wiki to the point I had to highly restrict it. I don't think its controvertial if the character actually has the material to back it up...Ralph's best known trait is basically what he says. Even now with the blurb to see wikiquote's page on him I still have to regularly delete additionally added quotes to his page. Before it was so bad...that the page got a dozen quote additions daily.

Here's my rationing on this. When anonymous users browse wikipedia Simpsons articles, one of the main things they tend to feel inclined to add is their favorite quote...since the show is so well known for it. If those quotes don't have a place to go...it just ends up inevitably cluttering the article itself. Some characters like say....Skinner don't have a massively memorable quote list so obviously they shouldn't get one. But characters like Homer, Ralph, maybe Bart...and Wiggum. They're commentary is one of the most remembered parts of the show and if it doesn't have a place to focus all this information on...its just going to create more of a mess. I've thought about this...and a seasonal listing of quotes is a great idea. But I also strongly urge everyone here to consider what I'm proposing. I think some characters just desperatly need their own quote page. I can tell you one thing...I'm not looking forward to getting another 20 quotes on Ralph's page that I have nowhere else to put. Since these characters have so many memorable quotes pertaining to them...putting those quotes in just the season guide may just encourage users to add the information to a more "easilly accessable" place...their main profile.

Even if I have to ask the heads of wikiquote on this, I feel very strongly that this is a good solution as well. If a character is a major, major supplier of many of the show's most memorable quotes they should get special treatment. I mean...Clancy Wiggum has a huge quote list of his own and I have nowhere to put it right now. Distributing it among seasons would inevitably leave a lot out...and it would just be so much easier to just put them on their own page. Easier on us, and easier on users who want easy access to this sort of thing.--Kiyosuki 00:02, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are no real "heads" of Wikiquote (besides the Wikimedia Foundation), only admins, who are just folks with some authority to do special maintenance. Like other WMF projects, things get done by a "coalition of the willing", including policy creation and revision and enforcing standards. (It happens that at en:Wikiquote, nearly all frequent editors are also admins. But the important factor here is the editing experience, not the maintenance authority. Experienced editors tend to consider each new article type for its broad consequences for similar articles. Admins tend to think in terms of potential problems they could unleash upon a very tiny and overworked maintenance staff. Or at least that's my view, from both POVs.)

As the community membership changes, so can change the ways we view different kinds of articles (as long as we don't violate basic WMF requirements like avoiding copyright issues). What I see happening now is a combination of more activity from Wikipedia pushing quote material into Wikiquote (where we have to decide what to do with it), plus a spate of one-topic editors creating a bunch of articles — mostly junk — for every single individual who appears in any favored TV show, sports program, or video game, regardless of how interesting their quotes are (often not even bothering to add any quotes). I can't speak for LrdChaos, but I'm concerned that accepting TV-show character articles would open the floodgates to this mostly inane article creation. On the other hand, it's already underway, and Simpsons characters clearly have plenty of pithy solo quotes. I'm thinking we're just going to have to live with the flood, and concentrate on the utility and value of each individual article.

We must also remember that anyone can, at any time, edit down massive quotes or quote collections to pithy subsets. The transwiki process requires that the material be moved here, but once it's here, we can cut it down to a reasonable size (or even delete it outright with a VfD). ~ Jeff Q (talk) 04:35, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actors vs. Characters

On the page for Joe Pesci, none of the quotes were actually said by him per se, but by characters he played in films. It seems to me that that a page for an actor or actress should be for things they said apart from their roles. - InvisibleSun 04:51, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You have a good point. We haven't been terribly consistent about this to date. I think some actors' articles have been created partly as a substitute for nixed character articles. On the other hand, User:MosheZadka, a fellow Buffy fan, gamely created legitimate, sourced articles for Buffy actors like Eliza Dushku after "Faith (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)" was deleted, demonstrating that it is possible to do a good job on actor articles even without their characters. (Needless to say, "See also" sections should include links to their shows.) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 07:46, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Stub Template Change

Hi, I'd like to draw the general population of Wikiquote to a post I made to the stub template talk page. It concerns the appearence of the "expand this" text as a external link. I am new and unsure if this has come up before, or indeed it was intentional. Please have a look at the post, as it is a commonly used template. --DanielBC 05:54, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think this has come up before. It makes sense to remove the "external link" feel, which also appears in the other stub templates and pages (like this one) that have a special edit link for themselves or their containing pages. I've updated {{stub}} and tested it. If no one has any objections to this, we should probably update all the other similar not-really-external links. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 19:27, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Last lines and repeated lines

Does the fact that a particular quote is the last line of a character/episode/season/show make it any more memorable or inclusion-worthy than if it weren't? I've seen more than a couple of TV show articles (Futurama is the one that spurred me to ask) where someone has put in an otherwise unmemorable line, prefaced with "[last line]" or "[repeated line]", or other text along those lines. In almost all of those cases, the quote itself is unmemorable, or makes little or no sense. Is any special status conferred on a quote by virtue of it being the last line, or an oft-repeated line, in a show?

My feeling is that no, it doesn't. While it might be one of the most important things in the show, these lines almost always hinge on having a somewhat-detailed knowledge of the show, or the character, or the episode. In the case of the Futurama episode "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings", which was the last episode of the series, the final quote, in the whole context of the show's whole run, and of the emotional context of the episode, is really pretty moving. Taken outside of that, though, it doesn't really mean very much.

For "[repeated line]" quotes, I think that goes double. In most of those cases, even within the context of the show/episode/whatever, the quote doesn't mean very much, it's just something a character says a lot (and usually it isn't a main character, or a catch phrase). Maybe it's meaningful/funny/whatever in the context of the episode, but again, once you remove it from that and display it on its own, it doesn't make the slightest bit of sense or have any meaning.

So, my feeling is that unless the particular "last line" or "repeated line" can stand on its own, without requiring the whole movie/show/episode as backdrop for it to have meaning, it shouldn't be here. Considering that I've removed the line from the Futurama article at least twice, and it's been re-added at some point by different people, and that it's a behavior I've seen elsewhere, there are some who disagree. Other thoughts? —LrdChaos 16:26, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you in principle. There may be cases where a last line is itself notable (e.g., "Rosebud"), but it's notable because of its enduring fame, not because there's something magic about final lines. 121a0012 01:51, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikiquote:Broken/

Anybody have any clue what Wikiquote:Broken/ is? It was created by an anon in 2004, registers up as protected, but has no entry in the protect log (either the current one or the old one), has no context, and no pages linking to it. I was going to speedy it as lacking any meaningful content, but the protection befuddled me, so I thought I'd better ask. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 06:13, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It was a relic of maintenance drive and created by a developer (perhaps Brion). As its subpages, all broken interwikilinks to Wikipedia were gathered and then deleted (we could have deal with them before then). I think it has no meaning except historical now. Related information would be found somewhere at WQ:VFDA a/o VP archive. --Aphaia 06:36, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fair Use

Someone has made a page for the entire script of West Side Story (Musical). I have therefore placed the Copyright Check tag on it. Are these items currently being reviewed by anyone? In order for an editor to trim for fair use, that person needs to have enough knowledge of the subject of the article to make the cuts properly. Since I don't consider myself qualified in this case, I could only tag it for someone else to come along and review. - InvisibleSun 22:36, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The {{Checkcopyright}} was created by a single Wikiquote editor, Fastfission, who made a concerted effort half a year ago to call attention to growing copyright concerns. They also essentially wrote the current Wikiquote:Copyrights draft policy, which makes the argument suggested by the template that someone familiar with U.S. copyright law needs to review tagged articles. This is not practical for two reasons:

We don't even have enough frequent editors to properly cover all basic maintenance. There is no pool of legal scholars — or even one, that I'm aware of — available for such work.
As far as I can tell, interpretation and enforcement of copyright law in the U.S. at this time is in such a state of flux that many legal experts disagree significantly on what is "fair use". The only standard I've seen routinely acknowledged by all parties and used by the courts is the fair-use clause of U.S. copyright law (Title 17, Section 107), which considers the following of unlicensed usage:
1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
Wikiquote is not a commercial venture, but it can be (and has been) argued that non-commercial ventures can undermine the market for quote compilations from the copyright holders, making it important to establish what "substantial" means. Unfortunately, various court cases have ruled very differently on this. (In my humble opinion, it has had more to do with the skill of the legal teams involved than any quantifiable standard.)

This is one of the many areas of Wikiquote maintenance that suffers from virtually no attention. It is a serious concern because one project, fr:Wikiquote, was shut down indefinitely because of a successful suit from a copyright holder in France. Interested editors are invited to discuss copyright policies and issues at Wikiquote talk:Copyrights. Meanwhile, the copying of an entire work, like the West Side Story script, a work produced well after 1923 (before which all works in the U.S. are declared public domain) and popular enough to be certain to have its copyright maintained, is a no-brainer. It must go. If someone can prove it's PD, it can be transwikied to Wikisource. Otherwise, it must be deleted, or at least radically trimmed to a few pithy quotes. I've nominated the article for deletion. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 00:29, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

IANAL, but.... The reason you don't see any other standard besides 17 USC 107 is because that is the standard. The Copyright Act of 1976 codified the existing common-law standard. It intentionally gives a great deal of leeway to the courts (unsurprising given the history), so there are few if any "bright line" rules an organization such as Wikimedia can rely on. But making a visible effort to stay on the right side of the law (even when the boundary is fuzzy) should count in the project's favor. (AIUI, the French situation was not exactly comparable, because EU copyright law works differently, and French Wikiquotians are subject to French law.) 121a0012 04:47, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Our uploader

See the page. I think it awfully unreadable (and threating). Putting a lenthy text to the title is bad, separation and modification is welcome in my opinion, though I have no idea how it can technically. --Aphaia 04:53, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the problem was that MosheZadka and I didn't realize that MediaWiki:Uploaddisabled is the title, not the content, of the "upload disabled" warning. I've copied the existing content (which was developed to better inform potential uploaders of why we disabled uploads) to MediaWiki:Uploaddisabledtext, which appears to be the proper place for it, and restored the default "disabled" MediaWiki message. However, we seem to have redirected our "Upload file" link (in the left-margin Toolbox) to Wikimedia Commons' upload page, so I'm not sure if these two pages are even used anymore. Aphaia, can you tell me how you discovered this error? ~ Jeff Q (talk) 11:45, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It seems now quite good and friendly, thanks for your fixing. I accessed it through searchbox, inputting "special:upload" and go, to see if we could restore deleted images. --Aphaia 23:38, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New feature

Though I suppose it is of less relevance here than elsewhere, since we don't allow local uploads, it is still important to announce that images can now be undeleted just like regular pages. This does not affect images already deleted; they were lost at the time they were deleted. However, anything deleted from this point on (actually, from about this time yesterday on) can be undeleted through the normal interface.

Also important to note: Commons has a backlog of 12,000+ images that need to be deleted because they lack licenses, sources, or are policy violations. Since images can now be restored, Commons admins (myself included) are now far more willing to mass delete problem images. At least 1,000 have already been deleted wholesale, and many thousands more will quickly follow. If anyone reading this has uploaded images to Commons, please check back on them to be sure they are correctly tagged. If any images currently used on Wikiquote are deleted, but the problem that caused deletion can be fixed (source can be added, license can be indicated, etc.), please feel free to leave me a message and I'll check into it. (I'm a Commons admin as well as Wikiquote.) Essjay (Talk • Connect) 03:39, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cleanup on Alan Partridge article

I've cleaned up this article and was wondering is it sufficiently cleaned up for the tag to be removed? I wasn't sure where to post this, so I put it here. Please review it or tell me where I should put this comment, thanks.

Page on G E Moore

I tried to use the 'people' template to create a new article on G E Moore, but seem to have simply replaced the template. I apologise, and hope that someone will be able to recover the original template and save my quotes from Moore. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by TomDonaldson (talk • contribs) 23 June 2006, 18:51 (UTC)

I've just reverted the change. The way you would use the template is to open it up for editing like you did, but instead of typing over what's in the box, copy the text to the clipboard, then type "G E Moore" into the "search" box to the left and hit "Go". Click the red "create this page" link and then paste the text you copied into the box there, where you can make all the necessary changes and additions. Clicking "Save" after that will create a new page. —LrdChaos 18:59, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks